Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Periodically, I check to see if there are any new movies and television series added to the free (for members) Netflix instant streaming service that I might be interested in and today I could hardly believe my eyes - Spartacus: Blood and Sand showed up in the list before the series has even finished airing on STARZ! Go STARZ!!

Although I don't agree with the opening disclaimer of the series that it is an accurate depiction of the Roman culture for the time period, I have found the characters increasingly more interesting and the series has drawn me in more and more each week. I wrote a full review (through episode 10) for Heritage Key.

I know it contains extremely violent graphics and sexual situations but as a technologist I tend to overlook the special effects as just so much CGI and focus on the story. Star Andy Whitfield as Spartacus does a good job in a very physically demanding role and John Hannah really surprised me as the central villain. I had only seen him in comedic roles in The Mummy movies with the exception of his performance as a treacherous Roman senator in The Last Legion. But his performance in that film was almost edited out of existence and what remained barely qualified as a cameo so I didn't really see just how forceful and duplicitous he could be!

Lucy Lawless goes after her role as Batiatus' wife with unreserved gusto as well and I've been introduced to some good performances by several actors I had not seen before too - Manu Bennett as Crixus gets more intense every week and Viva Bianca as Lucretia's friend (and Spartacus' enemy) is absolutely vile!

I read that STARZ had planned to begin shooting season 2 before season 1 even finished up but Andy Whitfield is undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma in New Zealand so the network is waiting for him to recover first. I do hope they don't change their mind and bail out like HBO did after we have started to care what happens to the characters. I'm really sick and tired of so-called reality programming and would prefer a little fantasy for a change - even if it is a bit over the top!!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

As I wait eagerly for the release of the movie "Agora" later this year about the efforts of one of the last academicians of Alexandria, Hypatia, to save its library, I noticed the Smithsonian. just published an interesting article on Hypatia. It mentioned some facts about Hypatia's family and scholarly work that I had not read before.

[Image: Hypatia by Charles William Mitchell, 1885]

I knew she was a mathematician but I didn't realize that she was also a skilled astronomer and actually collaborated with her father, Theon, on several treatises.

It also says one of her students, Synesius, wrote that she taught him how to build an astrolabe.

The astrolabe is a very ancient astronomical computer for solving problems relating to time and the position of the Sun and stars in the sky. Several types of astrolabes have been made. By far the most popular type is the planispheric astrolabe, on which the celestial sphere is projected onto the plane of the equator. A typical old astrolabe was made of brass and was about 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter, although much larger and smaller ones were made.

[Image: Front of an astrolabe created by Frenchman Jean Fusoris. Photo courtesy of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum , Chicago, IL. The Adler Planetarium houses the largest collection of astrolabes in North America]

Astrolabes are used to show how the sky looks at a specific place at a given time. This is done by drawing the sky on the face of the astrolabe and marking it so positions in the sky are easy to find. To use an astrolabe, you adjust the moveable components to a specific date and time. Once set, the entire sky, both visible and invisible, is represented on the face of the instrument. This allows a great many astronomical problems to be solved in a very visual way. Typical uses of the astrolabe include finding the time during the day or night, finding the time of a celestial event such as sunrise or sunset and as a handy reference of celestial positions. Astrolabes were also one of the basic astronomy education tools in the late Middle Ages. Old instruments were also used for astrological purposes. The typical astrolabe was not a navigational instrument although an instrument called the mariner's astrolabe was widely used. The mariner's astrolabe is simply a ring marked in degrees for measuring celestial altitudes. - The Astrolabe, James E. Morrison.

Although principles of the astrolabe projection have been known since 150 BCE, Hypatia's astrolabes must have been among the earliest working models dating from the 4th century CE. Astrolabes were further developed in the Islamic World in 800 CE but did not make their way to Europe until they were introduced through Islamic Spain (Andalusia) in the early 12th century. Just think, if Cyril's murderous monks had spared Hypatia, Europe's knowledge of astronomy would have been advanced by eight hundred years!

It seems that scholars are never quite sure if they should embrace the reports of ancient historian Herodotus or not. Now a controversy has arisen over his statements that the "ugliest of customs", prostitution, actually took place as part of the sacred rituals inside the Temple of Ishtar.

[Image: Ertoic fresco excavated from Pompeii displayed in the 'Secret Room' of the Naples Archaeological Museum. Photo by Mary Harrsch]

If you've ever visited the "Secret Room" inside the Museo Archaeologico di Napoli in Naples, you will have no doubt that the ancients definitely enjoyed their carnal pleasure. But did they go so far as to make the deflowering of virgins part of their worship of their respective goddesses of love?

The Greek geographer Strabo thought so claiming that Persians living along the shores of the Black Sea dedicated their "virgin daughters," hardly 12 years old, to cult prostitution.

But, a small group of female gender researchers led by American scholar Julia Assante claim it's all the product of overactive male imaginations. (After all, I saw a program this week on Good Morning America about the differences in the male and female brain where a doctor was discussing how the male brain is "marinated" in testoterone!)

More moderate scholars, however, think disavowing all sacred sexual practices goes a bit too far and have expressed their opinions that there were once:

* Temples that operated brothels on the side;

* Temples in which girls held the highest offices of the priesthood, even before their first menstruation;

* Professional harlots who donated their own money to cult sites, such as a site devoted to the goddess "Aphrodite Porne."

But with all those huge buildings dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of love, there was not a single instance of ritual depravity?

Gernot Wilhelm, an Orientalist at Julis Maximilian University in Würzburg, Germany discovered a 3,300 year-old legal document that recounts how a man delivered his own daughter to the Temple of Ishtar to serve as a Harimtu.

According to the document, the man wanted a loan from the priests and was offering his daughter as collateral.

But what exactly did the pawned daughter do for her new employers? Wilhelm speculates that the young girl worked as a prostitute, "but outside the temple."

Assante and her colleagues dispute this interpretation, however. She says a Harimtu was not a prostitute but just a single woman serving as a cult official.

Her reinterpretation of the word Harimtu doesn't make semantic sense, says economic historian Morris Silver. He insists that the Harimtu were clearly "professional prostitutes with cultic connections," who offered a "sexual service" on behalf of the temple. Priests acted as pimps and collected some of the profits. - "Did Prostitution Really Exist in the Temples of Antiquity? by Matthius Schulz

Other scholars point to the accounts of prostitution surrounding the Temple of Aphrodite in Corinth. Strabo reports the temple owned a stable of over 1,000 prostitutes (I thought he was supposed to be interested in geography?) Tanja Scheer, a professor of ancient history at the University of Oldenburg in northern Germany blames it all on an ode to Pindar.

"Pindar writes that a wealthy Olympic champion dedicated the temple to a "hundred-limbed" throng of prostitutes in 464 B.C.," Scheer points out, "It is unlikely that the prostitutes lounged directly at the altar. Instead the wealthy athlete probably offered the temple financial assistance in the form of female slaves."

Scheer bases her theory on the fact that the Athenian statesman Solon taxed prostitutes working in government houses of pleasure in Athens around 590 B.C.. The revenues were subsequently used to build a temple for worshipers of the goddess of love. Then somehow the construction of the temple became entangled with the source of the money used to build it in subsequent oral histories .

Besides, if you take Pindar literally, a "hundred-limbed" throng of prostitutes would have been only a mere 25 if you count all four limbs or 50 if you count just their arms - that seems a far cry from 1,000.

Strabo's sexual fantasies didn't end there, though, either. He went on to claim that loose women also inhabited the Temple of Amun in Thebes (Egypt) where they served as godly consorts.

Strabo writes, "a maiden of greatest beauty and most illustrious family prostitutes herself, and cohabits with whatever men she wishes until the natural cleansing of her body takes place" (menstruation).

Researchers do admit that a recently translated papyrus fragment does refer to young girls in service to the god.

About The Editor

I am passionate about technology, education and history, particularly ancient history. I am constantly exploring ways to use technology to enhance the learning environment and am particularly ecstatic when I can develop a technology to advance the study of ancient history.Follow me on Twitter! Comments or Questions: mharrsch@uoregon.edu

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